I recently attended the Ivy Rooftop party this past weekend where I got to see the Bullets2Bandages pieces in person. I like pieces that aren’t flashy, are subtle, and sparks interest so it wasn’t a surprise that the 5.56 hand pressed bullet necklace in an antique finish caught my eye. I’ve had a lot of questions about my piece and I’m always happy to share the story of how the company was created and promote their cause.

What’s their cause you ask? A portion of proceeds are donated to wounded soldiers, their families, and various nonprofit organization for veterans. These guys who have served in the U.S. Navy have experienced firsthand how soldiers and their loved ones can be devastated by war and are doing something to give back to fallen heroes and veterans.

Keep up the great work fellas and I look forward to seeing you achieve your dreams.

Thanks to the Twitter Photoshop template available at Boinblog, personalizing your Twitter profile to promote your personal brand just got easier. Most tweeps upload a background for their Twitter profile while others take it a step further, like Problogger, and include links to their other social media profiles.

Inspired by Problogger, Boinblog’s easy to use template, and armed with a copy of Adobe Photoshop, I took the leap and updated my Twitter profile. You can follow me at @HeyStephanie.

After getting the hang of editing layers, I offered to help customize backgrounds for my colleagues at Brickfish®—in exchange for Starbucks of course.

Rachel Kay is the founder of RKPR and is an award-winning public relations expert. Check our her new site when you get a chance.

Ashley Futak who is a part of the Brickfish public relations team and just recently came back from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York (stay tuned for her guest post on Wednesday, October 1, 2008), also let me update her Twitter background. For her avatar I went to PosePrints then used my digital scrapbooking elements from Keri Schueller’s Organica collection.

To view other Twitter backgrounds that I helped co-workers with, check out @mphillips4ku and @ssultar.

Have fun with your backgrounds and feel free to leave your Twitter link here so we can check them out.

Related posts:

1. Splitweet Is Perfect For Twitter Power Users
2. Now You Can Post to Multiple Twitter Accounts
3. 12 Seconds: the Twitter for video

I have officially dumped YouTube. He was old, played out, and everyone got a piece of him. I moved on to a player that’s shiny and new. His name is Viddler.

I discovered Viddler from Demo Girl’s screencast on ididwork and didn’t think much of the player until I saw Viddler’s president, Rob Sandie, showcasing how you can customize your player.

We’re talking about customizing the shade and color of your player, a custom logo, and yes—you can even decide where your videos link to!

I’m all for customization and Viddler just took it to the next level. Here’s my custom logo in a recent video did for my company called “Sharing is Easy“. It’s not as cool as Rob’s. You won’t see a guy dancing in the background but it’s a start.

For an awesome step by step tutorial on how to customize your Viddler player, check out Alex Carpenter’s blog. He even has screenshots of other custom logos by Viddler creators.

Related posts:

1. Share Scribbles and More On Springpad

I stumbled across Kristen Nicole’s article on Mashable titled, “Use Flickr for Custom Capital One Cards” and thought it was a great campaign for several personal reasons.

First, Capital One makes it simple to create a personalized credit card. I already have a Capital One card but now I can select a photo that’s already hosted on my Flickr account or simply upload a jpeg from my PC and make it more fun. See upload guidelines here.

Second, by using a personal photo I’m creating an emotional attachment with my credit card. When I’m in the middle of a transaction, do I whip out my boring debit card or use my fancy customized Capital One card? Chances are, I’m going to whip out the Capital One card then chat with the clerk on how fun it was customizing my credit card and tell her where she can go online to create her own!

It would have also been interesting to see what would happen if the Capital One Image Card promotion ran a user-generated contest around the campaign. Let people create their custom Capital One card with their favorite photo then offer a prize (i.e. a $150 Capital One Gas Card) for the best design in a photo category (i.e. Family, Best Friends, Graduation, etc.).

People can engage longer with the promotion and check out what other people have designed and leave comments if they want to. And if they’re not interested in other people’s creations, they can still order their new card. That’s a great way of building brand awareness in my opinion, what do you think?

Create your own personalized Capital One credit card now.

(Avatar Credit: PosePrints.com)

(Photo Credit: CapitalOne)

Related posts:

1. Brickfish Gas Card Design
2. The Viddler Has My Vote

I stumbled across the brand builder blog and got hooked into the brand tags by Noah Brier.

The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is. 760,000+ tags and counting

Jane created an awesome visual of how she interacts with brands from the moment she wakes up to when she finally hits the sheets.

Here’s how my average day looks like: